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Author Topic: Load Point Clouds into AutoCAD  (Read 7897 times)

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Offline ger21

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Load Point Clouds into AutoCAD
« on: February 09, 2007, 08:16:09 PM »
I'm writing an AutoCAD macro to import point clouds, due to popular demand on the yahoo group. From what I gather, there are 2 types of point clouds created by mach3. One from the digitize wizard, and one from the digitize plugin.

After a few hours of re-learning how to write macros ;) , I  can now load the point cloud into AutoCAD. And then I have a slight dilemma.

The digitize plugin outputs a file of points in rows. This is very easy to work with, and I should have a macro to output 3D faces tonight or in the morning.

The plugin, however, is a bit trickier. It probes in a spiral pattern. I don't know if the spiral is always uniform, and the same direction. If it is, I think that I can figue out a way to create the faces. If it's not uniform, then I'm not so sure. I'd appreciate some sample files created with the plugin if anyone has any.

Just to make sure I was reading the points correctly, I drew a 3D polyline through the points. Here's a screen shot of the prop that Art scanned. 23,335 points.

Gerry

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Offline ger21

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Re: Load Point Clouds into AutoCAD
« Reply #1 on: February 10, 2007, 12:30:34 AM »
OK, this will create 3D Faces in AutoCAD from a point cloud created with the digitize wizard. Be warned, it might take a little while. The small test files I tried took a few seconds on my Athlon X2 4400. Might be a bit longer with large files on slower machines.

I only have 3 files to test with and it works with all 3.

Known bugs:

Every other row of faces will have the normals reversed. If you load the faces into a CAM program like MeshCAM, you'll see the flipped faces, but they shouldn't have any affect. You won't notice in AutoCAD.  I'll try to get this fixed tomorrow.

EDIT - Removed file - New version below
« Last Edit: February 11, 2007, 01:45:51 AM by ger21 »
Gerry

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JointCAM Dovetail and Box Joint software
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Offline ger21

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Re: Load Point Clouds into AutoCAD
« Reply #2 on: February 10, 2007, 12:42:37 AM »
Here's a point cloud I found at CNC Zone.
Gerry

2010 Screenset
http://www.thecncwoodworker.com/2010.html

JointCAM Dovetail and Box Joint software
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Offline Chip

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Re: Load Point Clouds into AutoCAD
« Reply #3 on: February 10, 2007, 06:03:27 PM »
Hi, ger21

This looks really nice, Have a probe, need to hook it up, just haven't had the time.

Thanks, Chip

Offline Chaoticone

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Re: Load Point Clouds into AutoCAD
« Reply #4 on: February 10, 2007, 08:31:34 PM »
That is great Ger. Another member is working on some probes that will be affordable when finished ;). I think he going to try to make 50 to start with.


Brett
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Offline ger21

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Re: Load Point Clouds into AutoCAD
« Reply #5 on: February 11, 2007, 01:48:07 AM »
OK, I fixed the reversed normals problem. If anyone has any problems, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Now I'll see if I can deal with the point cloud from the plugin.
« Last Edit: February 11, 2007, 01:59:30 AM by ger21 »
Gerry

2010 Screenset
http://www.thecncwoodworker.com/2010.html

JointCAM Dovetail and Box Joint software
http://www.g-forcecnc.com/jointcam.html